Mixtures

We have not zoomed through the Science Lab, like I had hoped.  We just got to day 3, which is all about mixtures.  I've had the discovery bag out for quite a few days now, opened and ready to dive into.  But our days have been busy.  Finally I decided to set out all the activities on our colorful trays and put them out on the counter.  I haven't done this in a while.  I seem to do this more during the summer because it's more of an open invitation and they can choose when they are ready to stop the summertime play and do a little experimenting fun.  

Prepare yourself, this is going to be one of those "picture stories" I often write because I have 37 awesome pictures that walk you through our day.  

These bath tub color tablets were recommended by another parent or blogger, I can't remember.  But they have been a lot of fun in the bathtub and worked perfect for this experiment.  A lot better than food coloring or paint. 

Here is the whole counter set up and ready to go.

I wonder who will notice the fun on the counter first?

Grains! Hip Hip Hurray for Grains!

On our first day of Food & Fitness we learned about grains and we happened to have visitors whose parents are grass seed farmers as well as wheat and other odds and ends.  So this was a lot of fun.  We talked about different grains and as soon as I said wheat Grant pipped up "we have wheat".  How do you get the wheat out I asked, do you cut it down and shake it to get the seeds out?  "Nope we combine it."  That boy has to be 100% accurate with his farm terminology.  Cutting it down and shaking it to get the wheat out was not close enough.  Gotta love him!

First we wrote our names on the provided name tags.  I only had 3 name tags so I gave one to the three oldest kids - Lachlan, Peter, and Grant.  

Then we played with the oats that Mother Goose Time provided.  We touched it, and ran our fingers through and built our vocabulary by describing what we felt.  Next MGT had us use the grains to make the first letter in our names.  G for Grant. 

In the above picture you can see Grant's sandwich.  Mother Goose Time gave us break cut outs and they were to make the rest of the sandwich ingredients out of paper.  It was a really fun project.  Grant decided to give his sandwich for his Dad, he wrote hit Dad's name on it on one side.  He knew how to spell it all on his own, Troy.  He also wrote his first and last name on the other.  It was so cool!

Cody is 3 and has always had amazing fine motor skills.  He was so thrilled to be cutting paper, it's obvious he has done it before.  As he cut each piece he would say "I think I know who this is for . . .  it's for you!" as he handed it off to the lucky recipient.  He had such joy on his face as he gave his precious gifts away. 

 Here is a glimpse at the pile I accumulated. 

 Adam also loves to cut and started following Cody's cues.  He handed each piece to me. 

 Here you go Mom!  They may have just been cutting paper but there was so much learning going on.  Of course I will point out the awesome fine motor practice but also kindness and being giving.  These are not small things.

 Lachlan decided to make a few more letters.  He made and S for our last name and a T.  "A T, hmm, who's the T for?  Is there anyone at the table whose name starts with a T?"  I specifically look at Grant who has called me T his whole life.  Melts my heart every time.

 "You" he says and then gives me this face.  What. A. Mug.

 I think this is Grant's G that got a bit smooshed together.  What a challenging thing to make letters out of and they all did perfectly. 

In the following days we learned about more of the food groups, vegetables, fruit, dairy and protein.  We had a fun experience after dairy day.  We were driving to Lachlan's class at DCS (his homeschool charter school) when we got behind a Pepperidge farm truck.  We stared mostly at the back which had a big picture of their cookies that I was drooling over.  Then the truck turned and we all spotted the giant Goldfish cracker on the side.  An argument broke out between the boys about whether the goldfish cracker was considered dairy or not.  Finally I hear "Mom, are goldfish dairy?!?!" I explained that they have both dairy and grains.

This conversation would have never come up if we had not spent the time to break down each food group into a day and really talk about it.  Thank you Mother Goose Time!  Really, the timing could not be more perfect as our 4 year old has decided to no longer eat anything except goldfish crackers and bread with butter and honey.  At least he won't eat anything else with out a big fight.  Learning about food and nutrition should help, just like learning about growing gardens helped my boys actually try tomatoes for the first time.  Lots of great life lessons packed into this amazing curriculum. 

October Day 4 - Planting Seeds

This was such a fun day.  For us, this day fell on a Monday.  On Monday's this fall, I have the day "off".  I just have my two boys.  So it was just the three of us working through most of Day 4s activities. 

We started our day by planting seeds.  Mother Goose Time provided us with a little cup, some pink paper, pink pipe cleaner and a little pink circle sticker.  When we put it all together we made a pig cup to plant our seeds in.  Mother Goose Time also provided us with Rye Grass seeds.  Apparently Rye Grass can be an allergen.  I was so impressed at how well they had today's day bag marked.  The cover sheet that shows a picture of what we are learning about had a big pink circle saying Allergy Alert!  Also, in the package of seeds themselves there was another warning.  I had no idea this could be an allergen but it was nice to have the warning just in case my boys reacted strangely for some reason.

I filled our pig cups with potting soil and the boys planted the seeds.  Then we added water.  Now, we wait and see if they grow.

Next, I set Lachlan up with the Pattern Guide and cards.  It comes in a big 11x14 card-stock sheet that you cut apart.  In the end you have a strip with the beginning of a pattern and then open squares and cards to continue the pattern on your own.  We have been watching a lot of Team Umezumi so I asked Lachlan if he could use his Pattern Powers?  He was hooked and sat right down.  Got it figured out perfectly, with out hesitation.  I love seeing things, that were once a bit of a challenge for him, just suddenly become a cinch. 

Makes me realize how important it is not to push, one day it will be tough and the next day easy.  They just have to grow into it.  Not that things shouldn't be introduced, but I for one, really don't need to stress.  I think just having these things around allows them to pick up on it in their own time.  When Lachlan figures out something new, he is very proud, as he should be.  That's when I need to use the opportunity to practice that skill with him. 

I was thinking about yesterdays day and how it seemed like Peter did a lot of the school lessons and Lachlan didn't.  On this day, I realize, as I am writing, that Lachlan did most of the lessons while Peter played with other things.  I don't really like to force either boy into something they don't want to do.  I don't want them to grow to hate these lessons and activities.  However, I am pretty good at convincing them that what we are doing is the coolest thing in the world and they really don't want to miss out.  I also try take advantage of any moments that arise.  Some people would worry and say, that's the problem with homeschooling!  They don't learn to sit and have designated "school time".  To which I say "just to remind you, I have 2 BOYS, one is 2.5 and one is 4.5.  I don't think they were designed for that. Not yet."  And my boys aren't even that rowdy.  Besides, my goal would be to establish an early love of learning not an early hate of school. 

I do apologize about that tangent.  Moving on . . . one of my favorite lessons from this day was called Weathered Crops.  There were two questions, How can too much sun hurt seeds? and  How can too much water hurt seeds?  Lachlan was pretty confident too much sun would make the plants dry out.  He was a little stumped on how too much water could harm a plant.  But we talked through it.  Next I told him he was going to pretend to be a corn stalk.  "What's a corn stalk Mom?"  I told him about the yummy yellow corn we eat and how it grows on this really really tall plant, called a corn stalk.  (I can't wait to point them out when we go to a pumpkin patch this year.)  Next I got out our weather sticks we use to track the weather each day.  I got out, rain, snow, wind and sun.  I told him to act like a corn stalk would act depending on the weather.  First I held up the sun.  He curled up in a ball low to the ground and then slowly grew tall, all the way up to his tippy toes.  Next I held up the wind.  He was a unsure what to do so I pretended it was windy and kept on getting blown over.  He loved that and did the same.  Next snow, he knew just what to do and shriveled down low to the ground again.  Then the rain came and he grew big and tall.  We worked through this several times.  Peter finally saw what we were doing and wanted to try.  He joined in for one round. 

The last thing from this Day of lessons that we accomplished in this calendar day was the reading of the new book that came in the box this month.  It's called There's a Cow in my House.  It's so cute.  Not only is it a book, but it's also a song which is on the monthly CD Down on the Farm.  It's so simple and the illustrations are great.  It has become a new favorite for both of the boys.

Lachlan has never been much of a reader, but he grabbed this book, hopped up on Daddy's ugly man chair and got to reading.  I can't tell you how much this moment means to me.  Another Goose Moment (that's my coined term for things that happen in my boys life that I don't think would have happened with out the help of Mother Goose Time.  Things we have done that I most likely wouldn't have thought about doing on my own.  Or in this situation an awesome book I wouldn't have gotten with out MGT.)

Peter loves this book as well, and ever since it's introduction at least one time a day has requested to read it.  We sit down and start with this book and then read 5 or more after.  It has lent to a good 30+ minutes or more of reading time, all together, which is a new thing in this house.  The most I have been able to manage in the past is maybe one book here and there.  So exciting!  I hope I can maintain this love that Peter has discovered for reading.

The last lesson on Day 4 we did the next day.  I did it with Peter and Grant.  Again Lachlan was not interested, but I still really want to go back to this lesson with him when the moment arises.  We spent some time in our My Little Journal.  First we talked about what we could do to help people by planting seeds.  I started at the planting seeds part.  I had Grant there after all, whose Mom and Dad own and operate a farm or two.  What happens when we plant a seed?  "It grows!" Grant exclaims happily.  What grows?  "A plant."  But what kind? Wheat I suggest.  Do you know you can make bread from wheat?  Grants Mom was still here when we got started and asked him what was in his field?  Of course he has his own field, right?  He couldn't quite come up with the answer so his Mom told him it was Oats.  Oats, you can make oatmeal out of oats.  So when you grow plants, you can grow food!  I kept piecing it all together by explaining that we could help people by giving them the food that we grow. 

So they drew 2 people on the #12 page.  We got out two colors of paint and they gave 6 of one color food to one person and 6 of the other color food to the other.  They used their finger tip in the paint to dab on the paper making the 12 total pieces of food.  I didn't get my camera out until we were done.  There was left over paint so I let them both play a bit longer with the paint and gave them a big piece of paper to finger paint on. 

My Friends - picture review

Week 3 of Mother Goose Time this month is all about My Friends.  We have covered: making friends, school friends, neighbors, Pen Pals, and on today's agenda, keeping friends.  I am not going to go over each day individually but instead just pull the pictures from the week and tell a picture story.

These were the craft on the first day of this week.  They are friends holding hands.  One friend had a skirt and one a pair of shorts.  They got to color them and then put them together.  I showed Lachlan how a brad worked for the first time.  He thought it was pretty cool.

These are called Story Sequence Cards.  This is the second one I have ran across so far in MGT.  I really like them.  It's so simple, they come all on one card you cut apart.  Mix up the pictures and then let the kids analyze what's happening in the photo and what order they should go in.  Lachlan helped me with this and set it out on the stool.  Peter, wearing his helmet, came by to admire his work and "read" the story.

This apple lacing card came on the day we were talking about school friends.  They tied in the apple and the letter A to this day.  Peter sat down and really enjoyed his work.

The next day we continued to tie in the letter A to the Neighbors theme of the day.  We talked about neighbors and the neighborhood.  What animals live in our neighborhood?  Ants of course.  So we wrote a big letter A in our My Little Journals and turned it into an ant hill.

 These are the Hands On letters and the letter cards they give us each month.

 I had them sit down on the floor.  Find the letter A page in their journal, pick which color highlighter they wanted to write with and set out the Hands On letter A next to them to look at. 

Lachlan wrote his big letter A for an ant hill and then got to work drawing his ants.  They were very large ants, but I love watching him think through what to draw to make it look like what ever it is he is trying to draw. 

The finished ant hill and ant.

We had some down time when Cody was sleeping, I wanted to get the kids onto something other than a show.  So I got hem up to the counter and table and gave them each a task.

 Peter has really been interested in writing lately.  He picked out the green highlighter and I gave him the More Writing book from a couple months ago that Lachlan and I didn't complete.  He really did well focusing and tracing the letters.

Grant was at the counter coloring.  He really concentrates on coloring.  He pushes really hard on the crayons too.  Which is new for me, my kids barely press on anything they write with, so it's been a bit tricky to see their markings.  Lachlan is great at cutting so I put him to work cutting up the money we were going to use a little later today.

Next we set up shop for a yard sale.  Another thing you might find in a neighborhood.  Lachlan ran the sale.  He turned the sign to close and Peter had to wait until he turned it to open.  Then Peter would pick out what he wanted to buy.  Lachlan would turn it over and tell him how much it cost.  He read all the prices perfectly and with out hesitation!  This was great. 

 Peter would then count out the right amount.  He is really good at counting so this was his perfect role. 

At one point Lachlan stopped and started telling me the names of all the letters on the closed sign.  He got all of them correct except he got stuck on E and D at the very end.  This also made me very happy.

Peter would then take his goods back to his "house" aka the ugly orange man chair, and line them up.  Here he is proud of his new stuff.

The next day was titled Pen Pals and was all about mailing and letters.  We made a mail box for our craft and we looked at the map to figure out where we wanted to send a letter and then sat down and wrote one.  When I saw the focus of the lessons today was mail I called Grandpa Neil right away.  He called me a couple weeks ago because he had found 2 die-cast airplanes he wanted to give the boys.  He thought a fun way to give them to the boys would be to mail them.  They do love getting things in the mail.  The only thing is that we have neighborhood mailboxes, so if it comes by US mail it get's put in the mailbox at the corner.  Only UPS and FedEx actually come to our door.  So I gave him another idea.  Why don't you package them up like they are going in the mail but deliver them using the Grandpa Express.  In other words.  Place them at the door and then knock and hide around the corner.   Since we talked and came up with our plan life has just gotten busy.  But when I saw the topic I called him right away to see if he could, by chance, make the delivery today.  He was happy to oblige.

I had them go out to see if they could find the delivery truck.  All they could find was Grandpa.  Hmm, the truck must have gone.

 Thanks Grandpa for making this day about mail even more exciting.

At the end of this day we named and drew fruit on a large piece of paper.  Then they painted them in while pretending to wash the fruit.

The last day of this week has us talking about Keeping Friends.  How to be a good friend.  It also has us tying into the mailing theme from yesterday with the game they provided today.  Such a cute and wonderful game.  There are houses on the game board with colors and numbers on them.  We also have matching envelopes for each house in a stack at the side of the board.  They flip it over and deliver it to the right house.  Lachlan went first and got a couple mixed up, I took them off and he tried again.  Then Lucy went, she also did pretty well with just a couple mixed up.  They were supposed to play together and take turns, and we were to talk about how taking turns is a good way to be a good friend.  However, the mood that everyone was in at the time, playing on their own just seemed to be a better plan.

So last to go was Peter.  He got started and I walked away working on something else.  I came back to check his work.  He got every single one right!  Never underestimate Peter, that's for sure.

I hope you enjoyed a peak into just SOME of the things we get to do each week with Mother Goose Time. 

August Day 6 - Light Bulb

Question of the Day, what gives off light?  Today we learned about light bulbs among other things of course, like the number twenty.  We started with Light-up Numbers.  This was super simple and I would have never thought of it.  First Mother Goose Time had us color a page in their My Little Journal yellow, then color over the yellow with a black crayon.  Next they scratched the number 20 into the black with a paperclip.  It scraped away the black to show the yellow underneath.  I tried it first to see how well it would work, then I showed them how to do it before I let them try, to get them intrigued and understand why I was asking them to do what I was asking them to do.  Then it was their turn.  It get's a little boring to practice writing with a pencil on paper.  That's why this idea is so fun, something new. 

The first two were mine the last one was Peter's attempt.  He was really focused on the circle shape of the zero.

Next MGT provided us with this great print out of a light bulb.  It had fold marks on it to fold it into thirds and circle punch outs where the light shines through.  Yellow for light and black for dark, on or off.  First the boys had to cut out circles from the yellow and black paper.  I used the punch out piece to trace a circle on the colored paper for them to follow when cutting.  Both Peter and Lachlan have really improved in their cutting skills. 

Next we glued the colors on the page where instructed.  Yellow on the on page and black on the off page.

Practicing the on and off.  Folded one way the black shows through the light bulb and folded the other way the yellow shows through. 

We also got this great Counting Card.  Again we used Yellow and Gray shapes continuing with the on and off concept.  All the kids really enjoyed this counting card.  It's still sitting on my counter at the top of the tower for them when they climb up.